


A Study In Steampunk

by groovymutation



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 18:32:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groovymutation/pseuds/groovymutation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sebastian is left with the use of only one arm, Jim's raving mind allows him to create an invention that might just help Sebastian regain his old life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study In Steampunk

**Author's Note:**

> So this was fun. Thank you to Abi for being insanely wonderful and also helping to string together the ideas this came from!

The sky over London was overcast; grey and miserable. Carriages rolled down the cobbled streets, one in particular was horse pulled; the steam powered carts were made and meant for only the rich. Men and women lined the streets, going about their daily tasks, but not Jim.

He bustled through the dwindling crowds with a small crate in his arms filled with what looked like bits of scrap metal. In essence, it was scrap metal, but it wouldn’t be scrap once he’d finished with it; Jim had a knack for invention. 

On foot, he took a sharp right, cutting away from the crowded street for good and walked a mere forty yards to the front door of his shared rooms. The gas lamps were being lit and the night drew in, but Jim hardly noticed as his mind was teaming with ideas.

Tucking the crate safely beneath one arm, he opened the door and slipped inside before closing it behind himself and taking off up the stairs to his shared rooms where his other occupant waited for him in the chair by the window. 

“It ain’t gonna work, Jim,” the man answered as soon as he made it through the door.  
Jim’s eyes moved over the man by the window as he gave a deep sigh. 

He was lean and broad shouldered and his hair was cropped and pure blonde, a set of goggles with emerald green lenses sat amongst the tufts that stuck up. His eyes were the most striking blue Jim had ever come across, cold and icy but at the same time enticing and mesmerising. He slouched in the chair with his chin resting against the hand which belonged to the one arm he had left. A shirt clad his torso, rolled up to his elbow on one side while the other just simply hung there while a violet waistcoat embroidered in silver stitching sat over the top of it, fastened together by four, gleaming black buttons. His trousers were full of holes, patched up with grey fabric while his feet were donned in extremely worn knee high leather boots in the darkest shade of tan imaginable with thick, unbreakable soles. They covered his feet, shins and finally stopped just below his knees, all fastened up with heavy brass buckles.

“ _Patience_ , Sebastian,” Jim muttered as he tipped the contents of the crate over the table he’d spent so many hours at trying to find a possible to solution to Sebastian’s misfortune. 

The pieces of junk littered the table, covering intricate drawings of what Jim hoped to invent in the coming hours that would lead into days. Cogs clattered onto the table, springs bounced from it, gears clanged and the metal made loud, sharp sounds as it hit the surface, but Jim merely shuffled all the things into the middle of the table and began to discover what it was that he’d actually scavenged while Sebastian sat and regarded him with a slight curiosity. 

Jim was small, no taller than five foot six and skinny as a twig, but he had a magnificent mind. He hunched over the table in his long black over coat, removing his top hat and sliding his magnifying goggles from it as he set it aside. Beneath the hat, Jim hid a head of dishevelled jet black hair that protruded at every possible angle and behind his goggles were a pair of curious, if not deadly, deep brown eyes. He had pale and nimble fingers that worked with ease and speed and Sebastian swore that Jim’s brain itself was made from cogs and springs like the ones that lay before him and that maybe one day, he'd see steam coming from his ears.

The hat he’d cast aside held a small plume of magpie feathers that sat to the right side and those corresponded to what the people called Jim; Magpie Moriarty, so called because he was always scavenging and foraging for small, shiny things. His attire was similar to Sebastian’s with a few additions. Jim’s clothes were all mostly black apart from the shock of indigo in his patterned waistcoat. Where Sebastian’s was embroidered in silver, Jim’s was embroidered in black against the blue. A fob watch trailed a silver chain into a waistcoat pocket and as Jim slid off his heavy over coat, the handmade metal armour was exposed. Clinging to his right shirt sleeve was a brass arm guard, intricately patterned with wings and covering his hands were a set of leather gloves, reinforced with the same brass armour that stretched to every finger, yet still left room for him to bend and move each of his fingers with ease.

Before long, Jim had tugged off the gloves and cast them aside to fiddle with some smaller parts of his mechanical brainstorm. He felt slightly sorry Sebastian sitting there in the chair behind him. The tiger he’d met on his jaunt to India had not been kind. What had started as a nasty clawing had festered and become infected and once he was back home in London, the arm had to go. But it wasn’t like Sebastian had come home without his revenge; a clawing it might only have been, but Sebastian took his revenge in the shape of the tigers tail which now hung permanently from the butt of his rifle. Yet his injury made him miserable and even the simplest things he could no longer do with the use of only one arm. 

But what if Jim could invent a whole new arm for him to replace the one he lost? A brilliant mind he did indeed have. He knew about robotics and he knew enough about human biology to know what would need connecting where to make the damn thing work, but Sebastian was full of doubt. 

“These things take time,” Jim mumbled from his work table. “Have faith and have patience.” 

Sebastian grunted in reply and rose from the chair he was sitting in before giving a yawn and hovering over Jim’s shoulder. He knew he hated that, being watched over his own shoulder.

Sebastian's eyes turned to the mantle where some of Jim's smaller creations sat, some of which glared back at him and made him feel uncomfortable. Metalwork spiders sat on the edges, their legs made from coil steel, their backs glass domes to show off their ticking clockwork innards. There were birds of different species crafted from wood with spring loaded wings that actually flapped and trinkets of indeterminate value; Jim's favourite being the metal human heart that had a knack for whirring and ticking out of the blue.

“Yeah well, if faith and patience come knockin’,” he yawned once again, suddenly feeling rather drowsy. “I ain’t home. You comin’ Jim?” 

He gestured towards the bedroom but Jim didn’t once lift his head from the intricate piece he was currently constructing. Sebastian waited for a moment or two until Jim had finished piecing together whatever was in his hand. 

“No,” he answered firmly. “But if you’re going to bed, go now and please get out of my light and stop creeping over my shoulder. It’s extremely off putting.” 

“Maybe it should be off putting,” Sebastian muttered as he made for the bedroom door. “You could at least sleep.” 

“I’m perfectly well,” Jim answered with his back to him as he returned to tinkering with the parts. “Now please, if you would give me just a little peace and quiet.” 

“Whatever you say Jim,” Sebastian’s hand curled around the handle and he pushed the door gently before he walked into the bedroom. “’Night Jim.” 

“Goodnight Sebastian,” he called in reply. 

Once he heard the bedroom door close behind him, Jim breathed a sigh of relief, thankful to be working in the peace and quiet while Sebastian would sleep soundly in the other room. The mechanical mess in front of him would most certainly be ready by the morning and the desk would be clean aside from the wonderful invention that would grace Sebastian’s azure gaze come mornings first light.

-

The following morning, a bright sun pierced through the steam smog of London town as everything rattled to life in the street surrounding the shared rooms that Sebastian and Jim occupied.

Sebastian was up with the sun, dressed head to toe in black aside from the striking violet and silver waistcoat that clad his torso. He combed back his shining, blonde hair until it shone like spun gold before he moved into the main room of their shared rooms. 

Jim was nowhere in sight but his table was tidied away save a pile of small brass wheels that were stacked neatly beside something covered in an oily, dirty rag. The curtains were still wide open and through the window, Sebastian could see the great airships suspended in the sky, casting shadows over the city below as steam and smog rose up to greet their great, vast fabricated stomachs. 

Turning away from the window, Sebastian's steel blue gaze fell upon Jim who was slouched across their sofa, face down in the pillows and arms sprawled all over the place. He hardly ever gave himself a break, he scarcely ever could with that racing mind of his; there was always something to be invented, to be made better or bigger or stronger. 

For a moment, Sebastian savoured the silent state of his counterpart; it was a rarity to see him so calm and quiet. He was usually clanging about with sheets of metal, his tools falling noisily to the ground. He tinkered with parts that ticked and things that went 'phut' until he'd had made a grand something or other.

But now he was stirring, his great mind awakening as he pushed himself up from the sofa, finding Sebastian looking back at him. 

"How must you always be up with the first rising steam?" Jim questioned with a groggy voice as he swung his stick thin legs over the edge of the sofa. 

"You've some need to talk," Sebastian answered as he sank into his usual spot in the chair by the window. "You're always up. Up and lingering about like those airships. Just there, hanging about the place."

"I do not hang around," Jim protested as he marched to his desk with his thick soled boots slamming against the hollow wood floor with every step. "I create and fashion. Invent and excel."

"More like you scrounge and hope for a miracle," he scoffed in reply. 

Jim chose to let the comment wash over him; he'd spent too much time on the mechanical gift he was about to offer to Sebastian for it to all go to waste now. 

"And a miracle I have created," he announced as he pulled the magpie feathers straight in his top hat. "I have a gift for you." 

Jim nodded to the oily rag that covered something on the table as he straightened up his clothes and untwisted the silver chain of his fob watch. With a curious glance to his counterpart, Sebastian approached the table cautiously and lifted the cloth.

Beneath it laid the fruits of Jim's labour, the thing he'd been captivated by for days; the arm he'd promised he'd make for Sebastian and the very thing Sebastian had said would never work. 

He expected to see something that was much too big for him, too heavy and prone to breaking, but instead he found the very thing to be incredibly intricate with a hidden beauty. The bicep and forearm were made from sheeted titanium that Jim had foraged before he'd stretched and stitched hard leather over the metal. Where the elbow joint should be was a small hydraulic pump for bending purposes he supposed. Where it would join to what was left of his actual arm was a rounded plate of titanium to hide the gaudy scars Jim would no doubt cause if he did actually let him connect it to him. 

But it was the hand of the arm that captivated Sebastian the most. He took the hand gently in his own good one and marvelled at the handiwork. Whatever Jim had used to mould the fingers, he'd covered in a thick chain mail glove with leather stitched on the underside to act as a grip so Sebastian could still hold his rifle. Encasing the hand was a copper cover, covering over the top of the hand with metal that overlaid to move and bend with the movement of Sebastian's fingers. 

The whole thing was the perfect size to still fit through shirt sleeves, it looked no different to his real arm apart from there was nothing real about it. His fingers trailed gently over the detailing; a tigers head had been forged in the decorative copper and it roared back at him as he glanced over the mechanical contraption. 

"Well?" Jim questioned. "It's all yours if you want it. I'm sure it'll work once connected." 

"Connected?" Sebastian questioned as he finally turned back to Jim. "I thought it'd just work." 

Jim stifled a laugh as he fiddled with silver fob watch on his waistcoat. He appreciated that he was a novice among idiots but sometimes he couldn't quite believe the words that came from Sebastian's mouth. 

"My dear Moran," Jim cooed. "Things don't just _work_. The use of your good arm comes from up here." 

He gave Sebastian a sharp clip round the back of the head as he passed him to get to his table to marvel at his quite frankly, beautiful creation. 

"Your brain sends signals to your nerves, those are what makes you move," his eyes never left the arm as he spoke. "You have nerve endings left in what is left of your arm. If I can connect those to certain parts in this arm, the signals from your brain should travel through the limb like it was your own, enabling you to bend the fingers, even the elbow."

"Wouldn't it look out of place?" Sebastian tilted his head slightly. "I mean down there on the streets." 

Jim's eyes flared with a dark anger as they snapped to his counterpart. 

"There are people down there with half metal faces," Jim smirked a sharp smile. "With brass legs and silver fingers. Gold teeth and glass eyes. You'll look perfectly fine." 

"And will it hurt?" he dared to ask. 

Jim left the table for a moment, returning back a second later with two glass bottles intricately decorated with woven silver. Both were full of brandy and Jim slid them across the table to Sebastian. 

"Best you ease it as much as you can, eh?" he half smiled.

-

It was a tedious operation to connect the arm. Though Jim had no worry of bursting veins or arteries in Sebastian's non-existent arm, it still bled when he cut it open to search for what was left of the nerves and Sebastian could still feel every little thing as he poked and cut and fused, his pained cries were enough to tell him that.

He screamed when the metal was fused to his skin, scarring a ring around his arm before Jim reattached the titanium plate to cover up the mess he'd made. Sebastian sat up on the table, the arm dragging after him before he picked it up and placed it in his lap. 

Jim drew up a stool and took the hand of the prosthetic arm as he looked up at Sebastian. His bare chest was exposed, lined with scars here and there from his tumble with the tiger but they were fading out now, some pink and some greying. 

"The pain will ease," Jim promised. "But I need to know this works. Squeeze my hand." 

"I can't," Sebastian was covered in a film of cold sweat, his blonde hair plastered to his forehead, eyes bloodshot, the harsh, hot red clashing with the cold, steel blue. "It hurts too much." 

"Pain is in your mind," Jim answered him. "Push it out and squeeze my hand." 

He couldn't; he felt like what was left of his shoulder was on fire and it felt like Jim had wedged a knife in his shoulder blade and left it there. His teeth were clenched, sweat beading on his brow as he shook his head at Jim.

"Sebastian," Jim's voice was cold and stern now, his temper near breaking. 

"I said I _can't_ , Jim!" the metal fingers tensed around Jim's hand and bones cracked as Sebastian shoved him until he was up against the wall, Jim's hand still crushed in the copper frame of the hand.

"Didn't I teach you not to lie?" Jim hissed.

Though there was an immense pain coursing through his broken fingers, he gave a wry, proud smirk as Sebastian eased off and looked down at the hand clasping Jims; he'd moved it. All traces of anger dropped from his face as he gently opened the fingers up and released Jim's hand and heard him groan slightly in pain.

He moved his arm to his side slowly as if any other sudden movement might destroy it completely. A small jet of steam escaped from the hydraulics and Jim stared at it in wonder, cradling his crushed hand as Sebastian began to utter a million apologies.

"No need for apologies," Jim was still smirking and had successfully stunned Sebastian into a silence. "This is a breakthrough. Part man, part machine. The possibilities are _immense_ , don't you think?" 

The arm felt like his own. He wasn't weighed down by it and it didn't feel strange apart from the pain that was becoming nothing more than a dull ache as he got used to it. His fist tensed and relaxed on the mechanical arm before he wandered over to where his rifle stood, gathering dust in a corner; there was no call for a one-handed marksman even if he could still make the perfect shot. 

He held the butt of the gun to his good shoulder, the tiger tail hanging down his bare chest as he clutched the forestock in his new hand, the mechanical arm outstretched in another huff of steam from the hydraulics. It felt good to hold the rifle again, he felt like he was alive and that his purpose was back and he owed all of that to Jim. 

With no malice, he pointed the muzzle of the gun towards Jim and smirked as he spied through the sight. 

"Oh I think they're positively _endless_ , boss," Sebastian answered as he lowered the gun. "Best you don't tinker with anything for now though, eh?" 

Sebastian gestured to Jim's hand; it was the right that he'd crushed in the cold copper grasp of his new hand, but that didn't phase Jim. 

"I may not be able to create," he answered, wrapping strips of leather around his wounded knuckles. "But I can still draw up plans and I have so many of those." 

Sebastian gave a curt nod, knowing that Jim wanted his peace to fathom out his new ideas. He took his rifle, climbed through the open window and climbed onto the flat roof of their rooms. Stepping up onto the lip of the ledge, he curled his mechanical palm around the metal chain that anchored an airship to the ground and swung over the edge, rifle clasped tight in his other hand as he cast his eyes over the steam filled skyline of London town.


End file.
